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I've never had trouble with first person past tense, but first person present tense used to bug me a lot - enough that I put The Hunger Games down after two paragraphs because it was just so wrong.
And then I picked it up again (I'd bought it and paid for it and figured it's worth more of an effort than two paragraphs) and got sucked in, and read the trilogy, and then I read Divergent and a whole bunch of other modern YA dystopias - where first person present tense seems to be a contractual requirement these days, considering it's hard to find one not written like that - and then I ended up writing a story in first person present tense myself (much harder than one would think!)...
...and now I'm completely fine with it. More so than third person present tense, even.
I think it depends a lot on the book. Some stories would lose a lot of their impact if written in third person instead of first - or past tense instead of present. If the person and tense chosen actually fit the story being told, and if they're written well and consistently, I don't have a problem with either first or third.
As said above, at least first person narratives stay reasonably consistent. With third person, head-hopping is a real problem with many books, especially those written by less experienced authors (even those traditionally published and, I assume, edited).
I sometimes suspect some authors have been going for third person omniscient, but, lacking the skill (it's not an easy thing to do and as it's gone somewhat out of fashion, there aren't overly many well-written modern books to read in order to learn how to do it either), it ends up being head-hopping third person limited. (I should say I don't have a problem with the point of view changing from one character to another as long as it's done with chapter or scene changes; even the POV changing from one paragraph to another can work if done clearly - but I've seen the POV change within a paragraph and sometimes even within a sentence, which, well... no.)
So if it's a choice between an author using third person limited head-hopping or consistently written first person... I rather prefer first person.
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